


Bring On The Storm (We're Wiling Out Tonight)

by blackorchids



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: Boats and Ships, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hiking, M/M, Male Friendship, POV Outsider, Public Display of Affection, Slice of Life, South Africa, Summer, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: It's not like it's a hassle, being the eternal third wheel to the Joe-and-Caspar show, but if Josh can convince more of the lads to come home with the three of them, it'll be more fun.





	Bring On The Storm (We're Wiling Out Tonight)

**Author's Note:**

> An anon on tumblr asked: _prompt of an outsider POV fic on jasper being in a cute established!relationship :) idk them holding hands or falling asleep on each, joe sit in caspars lap cause there’s conveniently not enough seats_

Josh turns the trip to South Africa into a lads’ holiday. He drags as many of their mates along for the ride as he can manage, eternally grateful for the Maynards’ and their easygoing nature when it comes to vacationing destinations. When they’re finally all landed and settled, it’s a new playing field of filtering out which of his and Caspar’s schoolmates are genuinely interested in catching up and who’s just in it for the chance of fifteen seconds in a vlog or video.

They go hiking nearly every day, making their way through each of the winding paths in the forestry nearby to his and Caspar’s hometown, pretending they’re mountain men and getting yelled at by a forest ranger for starting a fire. Jack’s still apologizing, sunburned face getting redder with nerves, and Conor is doing a pretty shoddy job of trying not to laugh, so Josh leaves Joe and Caspar behind, rushing to catch up so he can try his hand at getting them all out of trouble so they might be able to catch up with Jenkins and Solomon and the rest, who’ve long since abandoned the English half of the party for being too slow.

It takes a few minutes and Josh’s best _responsible adult_ voice, but eventually the forest ranger claps him on the back, pretty hard, even if it’s meant to be friendly, and tells them to get out of his face, which is about as good as he can hope for, since there’s still a small, steady stream of smoke billowing from the pile of leaves and half a t-shirt that Conor had managed to ignite using sheer stupidity, probably.

Jack’s calmed down some, now that he knows he’s not going to have to ask his mum to wire him the money to bail Conor out of a South African jail cell, and then his eyes catch on something behind Josh and his lips quirk up in an amused smirk, even as he rolls his eyes and roughly grabs Conor’s arm, whirling his brother around using a combination of surprise and force.

He calls out over his shoulder to Josh after the pair of them have already more or less left the clearing, and Josh doesn’t really have to glance behind himself to know that Joe and Caspar are likely taking photos of each other against the backdrop of the greenery. One might get a chance to see the light on someone’s instagram, but more likely than not, they’ll each have dozens of snaps saved to their camera rolls, just for them.

Solomon snorts when the pair of them show up at the rendezvous point a half hour later, shirts askew, hair all over the place, and matching cheeky grins. They’re jostling each other back and forth with their elbows and shoulders, as if that’ll keep anyone from noticing that Joe’s got Caspar’s hand tucked neatly inside his own, and Josh meets his old schoolmate’s gaze with a long-suffering expression of his own, just to really emphasize that Solomon has seen _nothing_ yet, when it comes to just how bad Joe and Caspar are at subtlety.

Solomon cracks up, and Caspar looks over curiously, but Jack chooses that time to shove Conor off the rock he’s perched on, and Conor flails his way into the lake with a squawk of indignation that cuts off when his head goes under. The moment has passed and Caspar lets go of Joe’s hand to bound his way down the slope so he can leap into the water after, shouting some rubbish about rescuing his _favorite roommate_ while doing everything he can to hinder Conor from clambering back out under the guise of aid. Suddenly it’s a lads’ holiday again, and they all spend too much time faffing about the waterhole, their shoulders turning pink and tight, their brains turning to mush after too many hours under direct South African sun.

*

On the walk back, Conor’s trainers won’t stop squelching, and it takes them three kilometers to realize it’s Joe, making the noise with his mouth in time with every single step Conor takes, Caspar fighting laughter the whole time.

Of course it is.

*

After they tire of hiking, Joe suggests renting a boat, teasing Josh for being the only one who knows how to steer it with a few well-placed _captains_ that have Caspar’s eyes darting over to Joe with an unreadable expression. Josh would rather know less about his mates’ undiscovered kinks, but he supposes that ship has long sailed, so, after some more prodding that Jack and Conor join in on, he agrees to drive whatever boat they rent down the river.

It’s not long before Conor and Jack are edging each other on, having met their competitive matches in Harrison and Gary, who _also_ make it their mission to dare one another to do increasingly idiotic things.

Josh is so distracted praying no one falls to their death whilst climbing the railings of the bridge that he doesn’t even notice until after they’ve all bullied Conor into jumping that Caspar and Joe have squashed themselves into the single seat at the bow’s cockpit, Caspar more or less curled into Joe’s side and lap like the giant puppy he is, eyes drooping slightly as Joe’s fingers scritch at the shorter hair at the back of his head.

He waits until Jack and Conor start trying to drown one another and Gary and Harrison break it up by challenging them to a brothers versus brothers race back to the boat before he presses down hard on the foghorn. Joe and Caspar startle and level him matching unimpressed looks but more or less reluctantly separate a little, so that they’re just leaning on one another when Gary reaches the steps at the stern of the boat, crowing triumphantly until Harrison yanks him back into the water, brotherly teamwork forgotten.

It’s Josh that suggests tubing, knows Caspar loves it enough to abandon his romantic waterfront cuddle with Joe for a while so he can get on the tube with Gary and Conor, the three of them hooting and screaming for Josh to go faster.

Joe edges closer and closer, trash talking the lot of them with as much energy as Jack and Harrison are, and Josh lets him be the one to yank the steering wheel as hard as he can to the left, turning so sharply that Caspar is the only survivor still hanging on when the spray of the water clears.

They circle back around slower so they can pick up Conor, still laughing, and Gary, still coughing, and Jack crows about timing so that that becomes a competition too. There’s some mention of space issues, since both Joe and Harrison are slighter framed than Caspar and Gary, but Joe puts that to rest when he points out that their hands are smaller too—harder to keep a good grip on the handles of the tube, is what he says, which somehow makes sense enough that the three of them are allowed to compete together.

Caspar fights his way into the captain’s seat with Josh, squishing in nearly as close as he does with Joe because that’s just how Caspar is, and Josh lets him take the boat on a terrifying path of sharp turns and zig-zagging lines. He’s a man on a mission until the tube is empty, a path of waterlogged lads in the boat’s wake, and then he smirks a little smugly at Gary, tilting his head in retroactive challenge, a clear response to Gary’s teasing comment that Caspar’d go easy on Joe’s team.

“You clearly don’t understand them at all,” Conor says cheerfully, cracking open another beer and rubbing idly at his sore shoulder, leaning his head back for just a second before he hears Jack clambering back onto the boat and his _competitive idiot_ side shows up again.

Josh suggests endurance competitions, explains that he’s going to just keep driving until someone falls off out of sheer exhaustion, and both sets of brothers are interested, arguing over whether or not there’ll be teams and who should have to go first. While that gets sorted, Caspar bundles Joe up in his towel, thumbs digging into the place where Joe’s arm connects to his shoulder and Joe groans, slumping forward a little so he can lean his forehead against Caspar’s collarbone.

Josh is pretty proud of himself: _endurance challenge_ is almost as genius as when parents talk their children into playing the silent game, and it’s scarcely another hour gone by, the sun nearly completely below the horizon point, that even Jack is willing to admit that he’s ready to go back.

At the front of the boat, Joe and Caspar are dozing off on one another, sharing towels and likely holding hands out of view because they’re disgusting like that.

Josh loves them so much, but he’s definitely going to put them on opposing teams for his video.

Conor and Gary tiredly bicker back and forth in low voices about which pair of brothers is the real winning pair, and Josh takes the boat in a long sweeping arc of a turn so he can head back towards the dock, the sun setting behind them all.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me or prompt me on [tumblr](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com)!!


End file.
